


so wise, so young, they say do never live long . . .

by eena



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-14
Updated: 2012-06-14
Packaged: 2017-11-07 17:20:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/433560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eena/pseuds/eena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Also, that Stiles boy is getting cuter and cuter every time she looks at him.  And if that’s not a sign of insanity, then Lydia doesn’t know what is.”  Lydia, Allison, Erica POVs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	so wise, so young, they say do never live long . . .

title: so wise, so young, they say do never live long  
author: eena  
rating: PG-13, for swears.  
disclaimer: not mine.  
category: teen wolf (I know right?)  
summary: “Also, that Stiles boy is getting cuter and cuter every time she looks at him. And if that’s not a sign of insanity, then Lydia doesn’t know what is.” Lydia, Allison, Erica POVs.

spoilers: 2.03, “Ice Pick”

a/n: I don’t know, and if you asked I couldn’t tell you. I wrote it, be nice. It’s a new fandom for me after all, and I just wanted to write some love for my beautiful girls on this beautiful new fandom of mine.

~0~  
Lydia has always been painfully smart. She’s so painfully smart that she realizes that she’s smart well before others. In her books, that makes her smart and clever, two things which should mean the same thing but really don’t.

She doesn’t want to be that girl, that image girl who’s more worried about what others think and say about her. But she also figures that it’s not her fault when she does because there are tons more of ‘them’ than there are of her and her parents are the ones who opted for public education over homeschooling. Certain things aren’t really choices; they’re just stuff that happens to you, to keep you on your toes. Forced evolution, she likes to think of it, and since she’s so damn smart, she’s better at it than most.

It’s right about third grade when this kicks in, with force strong enough to straighten her spine and snap her to attention so fast that there’s a little bit of whiplash. She’s sitting quietly in Mrs. Fowler’s classroom, doodling in her notebook because the others are doing math and she basically finished the whole textbook in September and no one’s really noticed. The teacher is going around and checking their work, and Lisa Collins is done too and Mrs. Fowler asks Lisa to help out her classmates. Lisa jumps at the chance, but Brayden Reynolds rolls his eyes and declares (loudly), “she’s SUCH a nerd.”

Mrs. Fowler admonishes him, of course, but it’s too late. The whole class heard, and just about the whole class is laughing. Lisa looks unsure one second, devastated the next, and Lydia decides then and there: that will never be her.

So, it’s not her. Lydia doesn’t want to be that kid who takes crap for being faster than others, and she doesn’t want to be that girl who sabotages her grades because she thinks that will make people like her. She knows school is important, and she knows without being told that ten years after school the smart kids will be outrageously successful and the ones that teased them will be green with envy. She knows this, but she also knows the future is in the future, and she’s got to make it through the present for now.

It takes a few years, but she works out a system in which she gets straight As but no one ever thinks to call her on it. Lydia is in AP classes and regular classes, and she allows herself only three answers a day. Her homework is done on time and her test scores are nearly perfect, but she refuses to discuss academics with anyone, even if she’s genuinely curious or excited by them. She’s at attention in class and taking pictures of herself kissing Jackson with her phone at lunch.

She’s probably a genius, but she’s never lets on to her teachers and would sooner set the room on fire than be tested. Lydia Martin figures she’s Social Darwinism at its best, a girl who thrives and controls because she’s learned to bat her eyelashes in such a way that no one would ever suspect she has a functioning brain underneath her glorious, lush red hair.

Things are different after the Winter Formal, and she’s not even going to explain why. What’s more disconcerting to her than the idea of being naked in the woods for two days on her own is the fact that she can’t remember being naked in the woods for two days on her own. Lydia can spell PTSD just fine, thank you very much, and she doesn’t even really need to check online for symptoms (but she does, just in case). Everything about this is so very textbook, and while people are looking at her funny now, she figures she can ride it out. After all, navigating her way through the social scene is kind of her thing and if she acts like nothing’s different, then soon everyone else will fall in line.

Problem is that acting like everything’s fine is easier when everything is actually fine.

It’s not really the PTSD anymore, or more like it’s that she can’t really blame it on the PTSD anymore. The thing is, Jackson is acting like a volatile lunatic and most of his anger seemed directed towards her. And she loves him, still (just a little bit-and mostly just out of habit she’s sure), and he’s just in her face screaming about things that she doesn’t understand, but that she does on some deeper level that her brain doesn’t let her acknowledge for the sake of her continued sanity. Jackson’s also getting more physical as his innate asshole-ness amps up ten notches, and she doesn’t know why he blames her, just that he does, and that sucks because he’s actually scaring her.

And the hallucinations don’t help, even though Google tells her it’s just another symptom that will go away with the appropriate mix of therapy and chemical-balancing drugs. She’s been tripped out on pills before, and these hallucinations are different because they keep hinting at something that she refuses to admit to herself even at her lowest, something that utterly terrifies her so she doesn’t even think about thinking about it.

So, cracks are showing. People aren’t really buying her impervious act, and crying sporadically in the girls’ washroom isn’t going to help. But she can’t really help it when it feels like her death grip on reality is slowly crumbing underneath her fingernails. Lydia is the master at hiding things that she doesn’t want others to know, but there’s something out there that wants some acknowledgement from her and isn’t afraid to destroy her to get it.

Also, that Stiles boy is getting cuter and cuter every time she looks at him. And if that’s not a sign of insanity, then Lydia doesn’t know what is.

~0~

Allison Argent looked up the word ‘nomadic’ when she was eight, because some teacher at her then-school had complained to her father that her family’s nomadic style wasn’t conducive to a good education.

It should be noted that this is the teacher who failed her a whole grade, and Allison is still pretty sure it was because her Dad basically told the woman to shove it at that particular parent-teacher interview.

Nomadic isn’t a bad word for her life, but back then Allison couldn’t stomach it. The word nomadic had so many connotations, so many images of majestic, ancient peoples trekking through the desert in some sweltering montage of Lawrence of Arabia scenes attached to it. Granted, she didn’t quite know what Lawrence of Arabia was at that age, but the picture of the Bedouins in the desert didn’t look a thing like her Dad, so she turned up her nose at it.

She didn’t know, back then, that her family had an ancient history of its own. Maybe not Arabic in any sense, but certainly a history of duty, honour, and blood. What she did know was that they moved when her Dad said they moved, that she was in and out of more schools than she could remember, and her bow and arrow was her most constant friend.

(And she doesn’t need anyone to tell her-she knows how pathetic that is).

Things are different in Beacon Hills, and it’s not about Scott. Or, it’s not all about Scott. She loves him, she really does, and being with him makes her happier than she can remember feeling. But there’s also Lydia and Jackson and Stiles-people who have gone through supernatural hell with her and still want to be her friends. And more importantly, she still wants them to be her friends, wants to keep them close to her heart and never wants to sit through a hastily planned farewell party on their part.

Sure, Jackson is a grade-A jackass most days, and Stiles spends more time with Scott than her because she had been ‘banned’ from her boyfriend, but they still count. They count because Stiles hid with her in the bushes while they watched her Dad threaten a suspended Scott; because Jackson was worried about her that night she walked into the Alpha’s trap and they were all nearly eaten. They’ve been through stuff together, and they are going through stuff together, and they would only make it out together.

And Lydia, well, Lydia is her best friend. And Allison’s had a lot of supposed ‘best friends’ who forgot about her the second she moved out of state. But Lydia is different. Lydia is vivid, sincere, blunt, and lovable. Lydia arches an eyebrow at her Dad’s protectiveness, at her Mom’s lack of tact, and doesn’t once mouth empty platitudes about her aunt’s death. Lydia is constant in a way that is low-key, but entirely appreciated, and yeah she was busy with her own stuff during Allison’s Aunt Karen stuff but Lydia still called the second she got her head on semi-straight.

Allison honestly adores her for that.

She kind of wishes it could be like it was before, when neither one of them knew about werewolves and all that stuff. Lydia herself is still in this weird state of quasi-denial and erratic amnesia that makes Allison’s stomach twist, but it’s not the same. Not when her Dad is telling her to spy on Lydia like she’s the enemy is this thing Gerard is starting with the entire werewolf population, or whatever. Not when her Mom is going on and on about family pride and legacies and honour and duty and on and on and on and on.

Battles lines are being drawn, and she feels like she’s got one foot firmly planted on either side.

She doesn’t necessarily trust Derek (okay, lie, she doesn’t trust or like Derek at all), but she also has to acknowledge that most of his fucked-up behaviour is probably her aunt’s fault. Her Dad talks about their code like it’s a damn bible, but Aunt Kate didn’t seem to care all that much. And actually, Aunt Kate really seemed too happy about the part she played in the decimation of the Hale family. Werewolves aside, Allison knows about the children, the humans that died that day in that house. And her aunt’s blatant disregard for what she called ‘collateral damage’ made Allison sick in ways she didn’t know she could feel.

Allison knows that this thing with Derek is not his fault, that his life sucked because her aunt fucked it up, and maybe they owe him some consideration for that. But she also knows that turning half the high school into his brainwashed submissive pack isn’t the best way of handling things. She doesn’t care what they think Gerard and the others are doing; unleashing damaged teenagers with newly-bestowed super powers of destruction upon the town is a bad fucking idea.

Allison knows that not all werewolves are the same. She knows she got lucky with Scott, who seems so in control whenever she sees him in his wolf-form. But Erica’s acting erratically without a care and Isaac has already killed one person (and nearly killed Stiles while he was at it), and she doesn’t think Boyd will have any easier a road with this. She also knows that Derek is not Peter Hale, but that there are Peter Hales out there in the world of werewolves, and maybe that’s why her family is the way it is.

Allison knows the difference between right and genocide, but she also knows the world is painted in shades of gray and nothing is as clear as she would like it to be.

 

Allison also knows that losing Scott may kill her, and she doesn’t think her parents have realized that yet.

~0~

Erica Reyes was given a crap life from the start.

It’s mostly the epilepsy, and the fear that at any moment she was going to lose control of her mind and body. She thinks that most people don’t really get that, that they only see a girl who shakes and looks like she’s going to die, but then gets up and walks away from it every time.

But it’s not that simple. Erica’s grown up not hating her body, but fearing it. She thinks that everyone takes the healthy relationship between mind and body for granted, that their legs will move without having to be told and that their reflexes will bend their backs to avoid a Frisbee to the face. Nobody knows what it’s like to never know what’s going to happen next. She never knows if her body will let her make it through English class without incident, or if she’ll black out halfway through and wake up in the nurse’s room with her Mom on the way with a fresh pair of underwear and pants. Those aren’t her decisions to make, and it’s terrible in a way she can’t really explain.

It’s not pleasant to live in fear. Not good for your nerves either. Erica wasn’t always a giant stress-ball waiting to unravel; she’s gotten that way through years of seizures and general isolation. Nobody really wants to hang out with the girl who does sporadic Exorcist impersonations that scare the crap out of everyone.

The stupid YouTube video didn’t exactly help, but it did give her a new terrifying experience of watching herself flail around like she was drowning on the inside and no one could help her.

And so, we come to the rock wall. That damn wall has haunted her for years, and she’s always sent up the deathtrap because Coach forgets, every single year, that she’s epileptic and herds her up like he gets paid a bonus for every kid that reaches the top. And she knows she won’t make it, can’t make it, but she goes anyway. And when she’s collapsed on the floor and everyone’s gawking at her once again, she thinks for a moment things would be easier if she were dead.

But only for a moment. And then her brain immediately goes to thinking life would be easier if she wasn’t always afraid.

Scott catches her, or so they tell her. She doesn’t really remember much after the panic takes her and the seizure threatens to burst out across her body. She does remember Nurse McCall, because she’s spent a lot of years under that woman’s hands and they’re kind hands like her son’s, ones that patch up, just a bit, some of the wounds searing in her heart and brain.

Derek, she thinks, is sort of an angel. A dark, dangerous, and slightly creepy angel, but an angel nonetheless. Erica’s not a fool; she listens to his speech and immediately knows that whatever he gets from this will be ten times what she gets from it. But what she is getting from it is more than enough for her, and after her heart stops beating so hard against her ribcage and her breathing returns to a normal level, she says yes. Says it quite a few times, actually, and it’s almost painful to ignore how satisfied Derek looks when she says it.

And she’s not a coward for doing it, not a kid looking for a way out. Erica hears all about the hunters and the full moons and the homicidal urges; she hears it and she listens to it. She gets this is one of those ‘buyer beware’ deals, and she’s certainly not on her way out, but rather on her way to slightly more bearable. Her life sucked before, and if it sucks in some way after, she wouldn’t be too surprised. She just doesn’t want a lifetime of wetting herself in public.

She’s not sure how people could blame her for that.

~0~


End file.
